In Chapter 1 the trend in international tourism, dating back to the 1950s, illustrated the phenomenal growth in international travel, which was punctuated by drops and troughs in demand. Many of the current trends in tourism can be dated to the post-war period, particularly the rise in demand for holidays. This period saw a growth in income, leisure time and opportunities for international travel. In the immediate post-war period, surplus military aircraft were converted to passenger services and the 1950s saw the intro- duction of jet airliners.
In the UK, the tourism industry employed about 5 per cent of the population ( Lickorish and Kershaw 1958 ) and it generated £ 750 million a year in expenditure, of which £111 million was spent by overseas visitors. Travel remained one of the largest ele- ments of household expenditure. In contrast, the USA domestic market in 1956 was worth US$17.5 billion, with an annual growth rate of 5 –10 per cent and visitor volumes equivalent to half of the national population. Almost 85 per cent of vacation travel was by car, and accounting for 15 billion miles travelled, a growth from 11.5 billion miles in 1955. The car was opening up other areas,
particularly more remote rural areas and the scale of this impact saw the State of Texas ’ tourism industry valued at US$26 million (Lickorish and Kershaw 1958 ).
Lickorish and Kershaw (1958) provide an interesting snapshot and cross-section of tourism in the UK in the 1950s. For example, tourism in Scotland was estimated to be worth £50 million in 1956, comprising £20 million spent by Scottish holidaymakers, £ 19 million by visitors from other parts of the UK and £11.5 mil- lion by overseas visitors. Yet Britain received only 610 000 over- seas visitors a year from Western Europe, with much of the market attributed to the USA and Commonwealth tourism as Figure 2.10 shows for the period 1921 to 1957. In 1957, Britain received 262 730 visitors from the USA, 254 590 from Commonwealth countries and the balance from Europe. This reflects the close his- toric ties the UK had with the USA and Commonwealth. The lat- ter ’s ties were reinforced and strengthened during the First World War but subsequently weakened in the Second World War and in the 1950s as former British colonies sought independence. What Figure 2.10 also shows is the devastating impact of the Second
0 200,000 400,000 600,000 800,000 1,000,000 1,200,000 1,400,000
192119221923192419251926192719281929193019311932193319341935193619371938194619471948194919501951195219531954195519561957
Number of Visitors
U.S.A. Commonwealth Total
Number of visitors to Britain, 1921 –57 (no data are available for 1939–45)
Source: Based on tabulated data in Lickorish and Kershaw (1958: 339)
FIGURE 2.10
70 CHAPTER TWO Tourism: Its origins, growth and future
World War on international travel, but in the immediate aftermath of 1945, visitor arrivals did quickly return to pre-war levels (i.e.
by 1948) illustrating the resilience of tourism to crisis such as war. Figure 2.10 also shows that after 1945 inbound tourism to the UK grew exponentially into the 1950s, outstripping the growth recorded in the 1920s and 1930s illustrating a continued upward trend, which then continues to grow significantly in the 1950s and 1960s through to the more recent period.
As airlines bought new jets, older aircraft became available to charter holiday companies to operate services to holiday destin- ations. In the UK Vladimir Raitz is credited with offering the first air-related package holiday and Horizon Holidays (purchased later by Thomson Holidays) and he was soon followed by a number of other tour operators. By 1959, 2.25 million Britons took foreign trips, 76 769 of which were to Spain. In 1966, 94 per cent of these overseas trips were to Europe; this number dropped to 86 per cent in 1974 as other destinations were developed.
Figure 2.11 shows the impact of the rise of the package holiday in Spain, which led to the growth of Mediterranean resorts. By 1965, Spain had become Europe’s leading tourism destination with 14 mil- lion visitors a year (which had grown to nearly 48 million in 2001).
Spain saw its share of the UK holiday market rise from 6 per cent
The growth of tourism in Spain FIGURE 2.11
Years
1955
0
1960
10
International visitor arrivals (millions)
20 30 40 50 60
1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1995 1997 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
59 193 000
in 1951 to 30 per cent in 1968. In the late 1960s package holi- days to Mallorca cost £30, which was equivalent to a week’s salary.
The ill-fated Clarkson’s tour operator saw the number of its clients grow from 16 000 in 1966 to 90 000 in 1967, a sign of the mas- sive growth in package holidays. Consumer spending on domestic holidays rose by 80 per cent between 1951 and 1968, and on over- seas holidays by 400 per cent. In 1951 a UK holiday cost on aver- age £11, a foreign holiday £41. By 1968 the prices were £20 and
£62 respectively and the numbers of Clarkson’s clients had risen to 175 000. However, the oil crisis in the 1970s, Arab –Israeli war and the oil embargo of 1973 saw fuel price increases which led to a massive drop in tourist travel. In 1974, Clarkson’s collapsed with tourists stranded in 75 resorts in 26 coastal areas. This resulted, in part, from a sustained price war among tour operators in the UK.
During the 1960s the numbers taking foreign holidays was set to rise by 230 per cent and by 1967 there were five million British holidaymakers going abroad. This rose to 7.25 million in 1971 and 8.5 million in 1972 but dropped to 6.75 million in 1974 due to the oil crisis. Yet throughout this period, the proportion of the popula- tion not taking a holiday remained almost constant at around 40 per cent and this is similar to the proportion recorded in the 1990s.
In the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s there was an increasing prolif- eration of tourism products and experiences, and a growing global reach for travel. The growth in leisure time, however, did not lead to a major change in the proportion of people taking holidays. For example, in the UK the proportion of people taking a holiday of four days or more (a long holiday) stayed constant from 1971 – 1998. What has changed is the number taking two or more holi- days: this has risen 15 per cent to 25 per cent in that period. In the period 1950 –1988 UK spending on holidays increased sixfold in real terms. Therefore, changes in supply (i.e. by the tourism indus- try) and demand have seized upon the rise in consumer spending and associated factors such as:
● changes in demand for domestic and international travel, particularly business travel, new markets in visiting friends and relatives (VFR) (e.g. reunions among migrant groups) and the pursuit of new travel experiences
● transportation improvements, especially the introduction of jet aircraft, the wide-bodied jet (i.e. the DC10 and Boeing 747 jumbo jet), and the proliferation of high-speed trains and larger aircraft such as the new Airbus A380
72 CHAPTER TWO Tourism: Its origins, growth and future
● the development of new forms of holiday accommodation (i.e.
the change from the holiday camp to timeshare, self-catering and second homes)
● innovations by tour operators, including the rise of the holiday brochure, new forms of retailing such as direct selling, buying via the internet, more competitive pricing and the evolution of one-stop shop retailing (i.e. the package, insurance, holiday currency, airport transfers and pre-flight accommodation and car parking)
● greater availability of information on destinations to visit from the media, brochures, guidebooks, the internet and travel programmes
● increased promotion of destinations by governments, growing consumer protection to ensure greater regulation and resort promotion in the media and via the internet.
These factors certainly promoted the development of mass tour- ism in the Western industrialized nations in the post-war period, especially in the 1960s and 1970s. Many of the trends identified in the UK are part of a wider change in Western society towards consumption of tourism products. Looking at the past is interest- ing because many of the issues we face in modern tourism may already have existed in the past, and so are not necessarily new.
Even so, the past may not always be a guide to the future, espe- cially given the speed of change in society, the rapid pace of tech- nological innovations and the effect of wider societal trends. For this reason, no discussion of the origins and growth of tourism is complete without some consideration of the future.